Category: Customer Service

East Coast We Love The Most

In the past couple of weeks both Southern and Southeastern trains have been caught doing dumb things to customers. I did a pretty dumb thing to myself recently which East Coast trains were very helpful in undoing.

I arranged a trip to Peterborough only to find I’d double booked myself. I spotted this shortly after booking my cheap no refunds no flex fare. I called Lyndsay at East Coast to ask for help and they confirmed the transaction had gone through exactly as I’d booked it. The tickets were already on their way. Lyndsay suggested that I rebook the journey at the correct time and then she kindly agreed to refund my error, in full. I returned the wrong set of tickets and sure enough, the money was refunded to my credit card.

I also had a completely hassle free journey when I travelled, and I took advantage of their free on board wi-fi.

Good work East Coast, and thanks Lyndsay.

Image courtesy of the Library of Congress

Healthy Habits

Dashing around London yesterday I spotted this sign in the doorway of Holland and Barrett.

Great idea! Will this single act save the planet? I doubt that, but if it achieves nothing else it will reduce the number of plastic bags blown on the wind into parks, playgrounds and high streets. Good work Holland and Barrett. I wonder what is stopping other retailers from pursuing a similar tactic? Why can’t the big supermarket chains just go ahead and follow suit? Come on Tesco, Sainsbury, Asda et al, get together, and agree to start charging your customers for plastic bags, or better still, just stop providing them at all. We’ll soon figure out more sustainable ways to get our shopping home, trust us, we will.

Punctuality

Running for the train today I passed a sign telling me that today’s level of punctuality was 91%. Through the ticket barrier I came across this clock. I hope this isn’t the device they were using to get to their measure of 91%!

Shame I didn’t have time to dash back and snap the punctuality sign, but on the bright side my train subsequently helped improve the 91% by leaving bang on time.